birding with andrew.

I revisited the work of artist and designer Andrew Holder with my first 3rd grade lesson this year. I enjoy the way he abstracts and flattens natural objects in his well composed designs and prints.

As we were looking at images from Andrew's website we talked about how there are not a lot of contour lines present. He creates edges in his work by changing colors or values. We also identified his use of line, color, and shape patterns to give his work more variety and interest.

Drawing out the bird was done with direct instruction. I wanted to make sure their birds took up enough space in their compositions, so we walked through the bird step by step. There was more choice when th students added color and pattern to their creations.

I demonstrated how to use crayon pressure to make tints of colors on white paper. This idea of controlling hand pressure is one of the toughest concepts for my students to "grasp". Students applied color and tints to the main bird body, the sun shape, and the background border.

The tail feather patterns were open to the students' creativity. I asked for 2 things only- that they create an ABAB pattern and that they leave a part of either the A or the B white for visual variety.

The students thought it was quite cool that Andrew works for Roxy and they got a kick out seeing how, in some cases like the design that inspired our project, how he prints them in a variety of colors.